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The Blu-Ray Disc Association has announced the final version of the Ultra HD Blu-ray standard, and the new capabilities should offer an impressive upgrade for those looking to upgrade their movie collections to 4K. In addition to the aforementioned 4K capabilities (3840×2160), the new Ultra HD standard supports High Dynamic Range lighting, a wide color gamut (up to Rec.2020), and a feature dubbed “digital bridge.” More on this last bit in a moment.

The content industry previously released a number of “Mastered in 4K” titles as a way to cash in on the nascent UHD trend. But the improvements from remastering movies at 1080p — sometimes with slightly higher bitrates, thanks to only putting the feature film on the disc, rather than bundling in features and extras — were fairly small.

Ghostbusters in 1080p vs. remastered 4K.

As we previously theorized, Ultra HD Blu-ray will use the H.265 codec and ship on double and triple-layer discs of 66GB and 100GB capacities, respectively. The switch to H.265 content, combined with the larger file sizes, will leave ample room for even three-hour films to pack on to single discs, though the longest movies may need to ship extra scenes and features on separate media. UHD Blu-ray also includes support for DTS:X, Dolby Atmos, and Auro-3D, for those of you who have multi-speaker surround configurations.

What’s a digital bridge?

The official spec for the new Ultra HD Blu-ray standard doesn’t clearly state how the digital bridge feature will function. It says that consumers will be able to “”view their content across the range of in-home and mobile devices.” Fortunately, there’s supplementary information online, if you know where to look for it.

The new digital bridge feature is designed to give customers more flexibility in how they consume content. In 2015, simply having the content on a disc isn’t good enough — not when people are used to watching Netflix on a tablet, then transferring to a different device and picking up where they left off.

The digital bridge devices contemplated by the draft documents available online don’t appear to be systems that consumers could build themselves. Instead, you’ll buy a UHD Blu-ray player from Samsung or Sony that offers this feature as standard. It goes without saying that the platform is heavily locked down.

The entire process of validating a disc for digital bridging and any charges associated with accessing the content will be handled via remote servers; DRM functions will not reside inside the digital bridge export function (DBEF). Digital bridging is going to be standard on all UHD discs but isn’t mandatory for Blu-rays (conventional Blu-ray discs can support it or not as they choose).

As far as I can tell, customers aren’t required to connect to an online service to watch a physical disc directly in the Blu-ray player; the authorization is only required for streaming that content to another platform. There’s a substantial list of assumptions and requirements listed below (keep in mind that some of these may have changed since the plan first leaked.

Taken as a whole, the content industry is clearly tiptoeing towards the idea of streaming content, but altogether terrified of losing control of the streaming process. Exactly how popular this feature is will depend entirely on how easy it is to use. In the past, many of the methods the studios have backed for distributing their own content, like UltraViolet, have been decried as decidedly consumer unfriendly and inferior to other solutions.

Will current-generation consoles support UHD Blu-ray?

The question of console support is going to be important to UHD Blu-ray’s long-term uptake. But right now the picture is murky: Neither Sony or Microsoft have publicly stated that their respective consoles would support the new standard. Based on what we know about the hardware, however, I’d say they probably won’t — at least, not with the PS4’s and Xbox One’s you can buy today.

The hardware itself isn’t really the problem. Even the Xbox 360 and PS3 could likely handle H.265 decoding with proper software optimization, and the eight-core Jaguar CPUs in both modern consoles are robust enough to do the job. The problem is the discs themselves. The multi-layer discs that UHD relies on likely aren’t compatible with the Blu-ray players in either machine.

Assuming that’s true, it’s the kind of feature both companies could add when they inevitably overhaul their platforms for a new process node and lower power consumption. It might even be possible to add H.265 decode support to the GPU hardware with AMD’s help. Neither company has announced plans to roll out a new console variant as yet, but we’d be surprised if there weren’t second-generation Xbox One’s and PlayStations on store shelves by Christmas, 2016. Conventional player hardware should be available at retail within the next few months, given that Panasonic already demonstrated its prototype player at CES 2015.

Tagged In

Thank goodness I didn’t invest in a Blu-Ray burner. Blu-Ray 4K may be my next purchase in 5 years when it becomes cheap along with a 4K LED television and a 4K ready PC.

Darren Reid

If you hold off on Technology because there is something promising coming in 5 years, you will never buy Technology again. I can understand if you have no need for another 5 years.

DannyY98

Sorry, still burning DVDs. I tend to skip a generation of technology.

jdwii

Weird its like missing out on a whole bunch of stuff. Like skipping HDTV’s for maybe something next lol

DannyY98

What am I missing? I’m just not burning Blu-Rays. I’m burning DVDs because the quality is good enough. I have a HDTV LCD screen and two Blu-ray players. If you don’t know, DVD movies are still being released. No one has given up their DVDs. They are most acceptable for kids and family movies. The move to 4K blu-rays could be successful, but there’s precedent that it might not be. HD DVD did not succeed. Only if it succeeds, DVDs might phase out because it forces regular Blu-rays to become cheaper.

jdwii

honestly i just do all online streaming the TV’s in my house are actually used for that to. Hey my dad even buys blu-rays now and he generally hates technology as a whole. Sounds like your not missing out.

Anthony Millsaps

HD-DVD didn’t succeed as a competing format against Blu-ray because more movie studios eventually backed the format and Sony really pushed for the support. They also showed the potential to do more with Blu-ray such as disc capacity 50GB etc…and of course 1080p support. UHD 4K is going to be a niche market for awhile IMO. At least until early 2017 when more 4K movies are available and people are transitioning to 4K in general. It’ll be a slower movement to the format than say from DVD to Blu-ray

Marty8370

True, and PS3 had Blu-ray as game media from the off. That clearly helped Blu-ray(Sony). MS opted for HD-DVD halfway thru the generation(clearly an after thought

John

I hate to tell you this but DVD is just SD quality in video, another word, you’re watching 320p or 480p on that HDTV. HDTV is 1080p, so Blu ray is 10x sharper than DVD.

You’re wasting money on DVD.

DannyY98

I’m spending barely any money for DVD copies. I have no idea what you’re talking about with wasting money.

Andrew Fox

Skipping HDTV for 4K TV or the new 8K TV?

Daniel

Can get a 39in 4K TV for like 400 bux, although it wouldn’t be a familiar brand most likely.

Anthony Millsaps

To get the full benefit of UHD 4K you need a minimum “50 screen to see the difference. I would also go with a company like Sony which have been working on making 4K look fantastic with their Triluminos chips inside the TV’s. We got a “65 4K back in March 2015 and it looks FANTASTIC!

Andrew Fox

I heard the new blu ray players come with an updated version of HDCP so your 4K TV may be too old to use the new format. Hopefully they can fix it in a firmware upgrade for your model.

Anthony Millsaps

The only thing that concerns me is HDCP 2.2 We have the XBR65850B which should be okay with any of the new UHD 4K players by other makers or the current Sony BDPS6500 or 7200 models. I’m sure Sony will have firmware updates for HDMI 2.0 as the UHD 4K movies start coming out as early as March 2016. I don’t plan on buying a UHD 4K player at least until late 2016 early 2017. There’s just not that many movies that pique my interest enough to warrant the investment yet. My PS3 plus the upscaling by the TV makes Blu-rays look fantastic

Andrew Fox

Yeah I think Sony are normally pretty good at updating their TV’s so you should be alright :)

Anthony Millsaps

Yeah I think so too. Fingers crossed :)
The only current issue I have is with my Pioneer VSX-60 receiver. Got in 2012, it’s a great receiver, but it doesn’t play well with 4K. May need to replace it at some point soon :/

Andrew Fox

Hey just found this old comment tree and wanted to let you know that in the event part of your setup doesn’t support the new HDCP standard for 4k UltraHD Blu-ray you can buy this device- https://www.hdfury.com/shop/splitters/integral-4k60-444-600mhz/ it is probably cheaper than replacing your gear and will strip out the encryption from the signal :)

Anthony Millsaps

Andrew thank you for the device recommendation. I think for the price we’ll eventually get a new 4K compliant receiver sometime soon.
I picked up a Sony 7.1 STR-DH760 a month ago for my bedroom and it works fantastic! Got it on sale $199.99 (at the time) it’s back to the $349.99 regular price, but even at that price it’s worth it. My old entry level Pioneer receivers HDMI output just croaked, but I got 5 plus years out of it so no complaints. The Sony receiver has exceeded my expectations thus far and should more than suit our needs in the living room for our 5.1 set up to replace the Pioneer VSX-60 and at a price that doesn’t make you cringe :)

Marty8370

Be cheap and nasty panel and crap for gaming(Lag something rotten)

Luan Pham

“Life is short, time is fast. No replay, no rewind…”

Marty8370

You missed out, Blu-ray great for data backups

Decimal

So what about when 8k hits the market? Seems to me standardizing a 4k blu-ray disc is a bit short-sighted. I seem to recall before blu-rays actually hit the market they claimed they could go as high as 8 layers. This article only mentions a UHD blu-ray going up to 3 layers. Is it possible for an 8k 8 layer blu-ray disc to exist down the road? Although I’m sure eventually it will all go to streaming and this will be irrelevant. Hmm… was the use of a Ghost Busters image a hidden reference to streaming?

The first Blu-ray players hit the US market in June 2006. So it took 9 years for content to move from 480p (DVD quality) to 1080p (Blu-ray quality). That’s a 6x increase in pixels (from 720×480 to 1920×1080).

With 4K, we’re moving from 1080p to 2160p (or 3840×2160 if you prefer). Total pixel increase is 4x. And it’s taken us… nine years.

Run the long-term math out. So-called 8K is a further 4x increase over and above 4K. I know, I know — there are a fair number of breathless stories and demos of 8K technology at CES, and yes, the Japanese are pushing forward with the format, but you need to understand something — Samsung was showing 4K televisions at CES as far back as 2009. It’s still taken more than six years for the devices to move into the mass market.

Right now, there is no reason to expect 8K will take less time or follow a shorter adoption curve. Even if we allow for a little slack, you’re still looking at a 7-9 year ramp before 8K content is available. Streaming in 8K is unlikely to become popular until we have the replacement for H.265 encoding (H.265 can stream a 4K stream in about half the bandwidth as H.264, which is one reason it’s being adopted).

Decimal

Good points, all. There are a couple of things I want to point out though. For one, a larger than 4k monitor is already available for PC (the exact resolution escapes me at the moment and I’m too lazy to look it up.) So the demand for consumer content higher than 4k is already a possibility. Second, you mentioned the leap from 480p (DVD quality) to 1080p (Blu-Ray quality). But in between 480p and 1080p was 720i, 720p, and 1080i. I bring this up because I believe the comparision can be made from 480p to 1080p and 4k to 8k. Who’s to say as soon as a 4k Blu-Ray hits the market there won’t be 5k TVs then 6k, 7k, then 8k. My overall point is, like I said earlier, a 4k Blu-Ray seems short-sighted. If (as I alluded to before) Blu-Rays can do 8 layers, why don’t they come up with a 8k UHD 8 layer Blu-Ray disc standard for a little future-proofing.

Of course you could put on a tin foil hat and say they won’t do it because they want you to buy those 4K players now and then again in a few years those fancy new 8k players.

A 1080p display is 2 megapixels.
A “4K” display is 8 megapixels. 4x 1080p resolution. And the gap between “1080” and “4000” is nearly 4x as well.

But a “5K” monitor is 5120×2880. It’s not 25% more pixels than 4K — it’s almost *twice* as many pixels. But they’re calling it 5K because marketing reasons.

The ecosystem is standardizing on 4K. I’m not saying nobody will offer 8K, because hey — maybe Netflix will decide to shove 8K streaming down some gigabit linkages at insane bandwidth and charge out the wazoo for it. But I don’t expect to see widespread 8K panel adoption or content availability (and you can say good-bye to modern GPUs being able to push 8K frame rates any time soon, considering we’re still struggling to get high-quality 4K out at 60 FPS from a single card).

Luke

There’s nothing silly about the term 5K. You’re comparing the height of an FHD image (1080) to the width of a 4K image (4096, or 4000, as you wrote), why?

4K is nothing but 4 x 1024 Pixels (= 4096) in width and 5K is 5 x 1024 Pixels (=5120) in width. That the jump in resolution from 4K to 5K isn’t a linear correlation between the images’ widths goes without saying, because naturally the resolution is measured over the area of the image.

Joel Hruska

Luke,

What I dislike about 5K is that it does not capture the increase in pixel density relative to 4K.

A 4K screen happens to be 4x the pixels of 1080p (so the four makes marketing sense). A 4K screen is also roughly 4*1080 (I realize that the actual number is 3.55, but people round). So again, from a marketing perspective, you’ve got a common “about 4x” figure.

5K is consistent, in that it continues to report the horizontal pixel count, but the nifty alignment between the 4K figure and the 4x multiplier isn’t present. It doesn’t do a good job of conveying to the customer how much of an improvement exists between itself and the previous standard.

Andrew Fox

They already have 8K TV’s in limited production. It seems silly when you consider how far back you sit from a TV though. Your comments about a computer monitor are certainly more spot on but how much demand is there for 8K movies that you can only benefit from on a computer?

ST

You keep using 4k and Ultra HD interchangeably even though they are two different resolutions. 4k is not 3840×2160. It is 4096 x 2160. The number you reference is Ultra HD. I wonder if 4k will be replaced with UHD.

Joel Hruska

You are technically correct — but no company or marketing department has respected this distinction.

If I had things my way, we’d be calling these new displays “2160p” (to maintain continuity with the 1080p standard). Unfortunately, no one asked me.

If any company has actually shipped a DCI 4K television, I can’t find it. It’s effectively buried in the sea of UHD screens.

I will use the DCI 4K distinction when discussing digital film formats or production standards — in other words, when it makes sense to differentiate the two in a technical article. In common parlance, 4K and UHD are generally understood to be interchangeable. Given that there don’t appear to be any DCI 4K-compliant televisions intended for the mass market, the risk of meaningful confusion is nil.

I think 4K is overkill, unless you like to sit very close to a very large screen.
But every time I say that I get told I’m a “nobody needs more than 640K” kind of guy. So whatever.

Marty8370

20 layers are possible 500GB+

Asmodai

As you say PS4 and Xbox One drives probably can’t read the 66 and 100GB discs. Even if they could they have no hardware H.265 (HEVC) support though as you say in theory they have the CPU power to do it in software (with some GPU assist). Doing so will likely cause the CPU to run hot however which will likely make the console loud over extended periods of time and keep it in high power mode (the CPU can mostly shut down when just playing standard Blu-Ray because there is dedicated decoding hardware). Even if all that works though the HDMI 1.4 ports on these consoles is only capable of outputting 4k@30fps and not the 60fps this spec allows.

4k may very well come to Xbox One and PS4 but it will likely be only on streaming content, only using a software decoder, and only at 30fps. It won’t be Ultra HD Blu-Ray.

It’s also interesting to note that Ultra HD Blu-Ray has no 3D support and none is planned. Devices are supposed to be backwards compatible with standard Blu-Ray but even then standard Blu-Ray 3D support is optional on Ultra HD Blu-Ray players.

KochBrosGoGreen

I think blu-ray (the current one) is pretty much the end of physical discs. I have an Xbox One and after the first few games, I stopped buying physical copies. In fact, I rebought digital copies of all the games I already had on disc. I just waited for a sale, boom, no more disc swapping. Even for movies I adore, I have gotten to the point where if is over ten dollars, I won’t bother with a disc unless it also includes a digital copy. Now even $10 seems too much and I wait for most discs to get to $5. Going from 50GB to at most 100GB is too little advancement for nine years. I either want to stream OR I want to take a 128GB USB stick to a Redbox kiosk, copy my movie to stick, and take it home. SD cards already hold 128GB, and soon cheap microSD cards will as well. By the time these news discs and players hit the market, there will be cheap 256GB (or more) USB sticks. Why limit myself to a relatively puny bitrate? The lack of 3D also gives me pause since I want to play the Hobbit and the next Avatar movies in their full 48FPS/3D glory. The “new” Blu-ray format is too little, too late while digital download formats can keep adding features at a moments notice. As the article noted, all of the existing consoles (or any new tablet) could play 4k or greater content right now. Physical, dedicated movie players are dead.

Asmodai

Physical discs are going to be around for a long time because there are a large number of people who have crappy internet connections or have to pay for bandwidth and don’t want to waste it downloading 40+ GB games. Heck I have very high speed internet (Verizon FiOS) and I still prefer discs because with AAA titles being 40+ GB now the HDD in modern consoles fills up pretty quick. I’m already juggling games I have installed and if I have to reinstall one is A LOT faster for me to load it from the disc then it is to download it over again. Plus you can’t share digital copies with friends as easily as physical ones.
As for movies the disc version are vastly superior in image quality to streamed video. Streamed video uses much more aggressive compression (and again some people have slow connections and/or have data caps). I’d rather pay $2 or whatever it is and watch a Blu-Ray from Redbox than stream the movie which costs more and is worse quality. Movie companies are never going to put movies on USB sticks and 3D is dead.
Existing consoles MIGHT be able to play 4k@30fps content with a SOFTWARE decoder. They lack the hardware to do hardware decoding so they’ll run hot and suck down power to do it in software on the CPUs instead. Furthermore they lack the required port to do 4k@60fps as that standard didn’t come out until after they were launched.

Phobos

Super, another Blu ray player for 4k or UHD. Whats going to happen with the current library of Blu-ray disks? no upgrade to 4k? Will have to buy everything again?

Joel Hruska

UHD Blu-ray players will be fully backwards compatible with Blu-ray and DVD discs, so you’ll still be able to play existing content. Some, if not all players will probably ship with 4K upscalers, just as a number of Blu-ray players were capable of upscaling DVD content to 1080p.

I expect that yes, we will see content producers re-issuing films on 4K just as many movies got an upgrade from VHS to DVD and then from DVD to Blu-ray.

Phobos

I know they will backwards compatible that’s not my point.

I just feel studios likes to give the middle finger to loyal costumers.

slow_moon

So what IS your point? That other people will have nicer-looking movies than you unless you also upgrade? You can’t have it both ways.

I understand your feeling but are you saying studios should stick with 1080p and not progress at all?

DVD movies were around for about ten years when BR movies hit and yet, despite the clear difference in quality between the two, DVD movies are still being manufactured and bought today.

So who’s to say BR movies will stop being manufactured when 4K BR movies hit? Don’t forget that 4K is a much tougher sell than HD was. Many people don’t see what the fuss is about and will happily stay with BR for a long while yet, so you and I can relax and hold on to our collection a bit longer :)

Phobos

I already did in an early post.

Hectic Charmander

Phobos: So what happens to all the movies I have??

Joel: You can still continue to enjoy them just as you do now with the same great quality for a long time to come.

Personally, I will keep my very modest library of 174 blu-rays for a long time. You sound like this is a transition that will take place over night. UHD Blu-ray will take several years to become the standard. They will be $30-$40 per disc when they first come out and It will take time for the price to come down. It will take an even longer time for the entire catalog of movies to be transferred to the new medium.

You also sound surprised there is a new UHD medium. Why so surprised? They have been discussing this technology for over 3 years now.

Phobos

Yeah, at $30-40 screw them.

“Super” can’t read sarcasm?

VirtualMark

If you want 4k then you’ll have to pay full price I guess. Which sucks. Some movies were released on VHS, then DVD, then Blu-Ray, then they’ll probably be released on 4k. The studios get money just for doing a quick remaster, it’s a joke.

And they wonder why we pirate.

Phobos

Exactly!

Now I will be willing to pay a small fee if they would offered to upgrade my DVD’s or Blue-ray movies to 4k BR disks like $2-3.

The thing I worry about (and I didn’t write this piece, Joel did) is all the BS you have to sit through when watching a Blu-ray. It’s still a physical disc, compared with easy-to-use movie files, and they force previews and ads on you. I love the quality and the idea of “owning” the disc (if not the rights to the movie itself, obviously). But I don’t like what’s happened over the years with discs.

Joel Hruska

As far as I’m concerned, reading the tiny-print FBI warning is the highlight of ANY movie. Second, of course, to the unskippable advertisements and previews for films that came out new when my grandma was in diapers.

Lassen32

I feel you. That’s why I’ve invested lots of time and a little money in ripping my owned Blu-rays into MKV files (uncompressed for the best titles) on my home PC so they can be streamed to my home theater using Kodi or Plex software as the frontend. It’s combines the same great picture and audio quality of Blu-rays with the ease of use and simplicity of Netflix. Just click and play without the stupid ads, trailers, and FBI warnings :)

But I realize most people don’t have the time or interest to do that. But just my 2 cents…

VirtualMark

Yeah it’s annoying as hell. If you pirate then you don’t get any of that crap, but if you pay and support them, then you get punished and have to sit through it all. It doesn’t make sense at all.

Scott

OK I’ve never purchased anything on blue-ray. Am I understanding correctly that there are advertisements and/or previews that you aren’t able to skip?

If that’s the case I’m very glad I never wasted a penny on them, because I would throw them in the garbage. I will gladly pay for Netflix and purchase Movies and TV on Amazon Instant Video to avoid ads.

Why does you picture comparing 2009 blu-ray (1920×1080?) against 2015 4k blu-ray (3840×2160?) consist of two images at only 1280×540?

Joel Hruska

The Blu-ray comparison shot above is from a movie that was remastered in 1080p *from* a 4K digital master. The film was also released as the only content on the disc, which allowed for slightly higher quality settings.

That’s a 1080p movie against a 1080p movie. I didn’t take the screenshots myself, so I can’t speak to why the original author chose the 1280×540 format.

J.P.M.

Disks are dead. Who cares about a new standard? They may as well have announced a new format for floppy disks that stores 4 times as much data as a 3.5 incher. Next story…

Zunalter

Until we get ubiquitous no data-cap internet at speeds capable of 4K streaming, Discs are going to hang on. It might be on the decline, but it’s still a $7bn a year business.

J.P.M.

DVD and Blu Ray sales are falling about 15% a year, while streaming is growing at about 40% to 50% a year depending on who you ask. A 4K disk won’t turn that trend around. In two years, revenue from online sales will dwarf disks. Current players won’t play the new format, which means you have to wait for manufacturers to come out with players, maybe by this holiday season (but probably not on any wide scale). Realistically they will be a niche product until they die completely. Laser disk players will be a bigger footnote in history.

Aaron Briggs

Just like the Blu-ray was going to replace the DVD and its still be sold.. and its been around sense 1997.. There is still A LOT of people out there that have high data caps, low ISP speeds, and prefur to own there products instead of giving there money to a big company every month with nothing to show for it. Just blows my mind that so many idiots out there are so willing to just keep paying monthly fees forever, I remember just not to long ago that everyone was trying to cut per month costs.

Purple-Stater

“Just blows my mind that so many idiots out there”

…assume that the only thing cable TV is for is movies, sports and generic fiction (sitcoms, reality, drama, etc.). And Netflix and Hulu don’t even work for all of those.

Joel Hruska

JPM,

I don’t expect 4K to stop the general move towards streaming. I also dont’ expect the retail market for UHD BD to die in the near future, either.

Zunalter

Still $7bn a year…it will take a while to kill that giant.

technoreaper

Hope you feel real cool when all those companies start gouging you because people can’t resell their streams…

Scott

I haven’t purchased a DVD in years, and I’ve never purchased anything on blue-ray. I don’t see anything that would ever convince me to start buying discs again.

I hope all the old media distribution (physical, broadcast, cable, etc.) die in favor of online streaming.

Aaron Briggs

and I am going to laugh with your internet costs and streaming costs dwarf what you used to pay and watch as Netflix etc continue to drop movies due to licensing and force you onto multiple subscriptions due to licensing and more venders jumping on the streaming band wagon and its already going that way. streaming is cheap right now cause of competition but take that away then it will just keep going up and costs are already going up and the through of Netflix and amazon controlling what media I get to watch and giving them endless growing monthly fees and knowing once I stop paying I have nothing to show for it. Screw that, you can waste all your money on stupid streaming I will buy my Combo packs that give me digital and physical versions for 20$.

Purple-Stater

Sounds like you’re only interested in an extremely limited range of product. That doesn’t make your opinion overly relevant to the market.

You say that streaming is cheap right now because of competition. Well, as things continue to be more and more internet-based, that means that things will continue to grow more competitive, not less. As we’re seeing companies like HBO offer direct subscriptions now, it’s only a matter of time before the big networks (NBC, CBS, etc.) start doing the same. We’re at the beginning of the death of the cable industry as a television provider. It won’t be that long until they will be nothing more than internet providers and all viewing subscriptions will be direct.

Scott

I agree with everything you said, and I hope the transition to all-direct subscriptions comes soon.

I can’t stand the cable TV model that makes you purchase a package of 99% garbage. And of course the one program on the one channel I want is only available on the higher-tier packages.

For now I’ll purchase movies/TV programs individually on Amazon Instant Video (if they aren’t already on Netflix/Prime). And I generally spend far less than on a cable package, and the best part that’s (almost) priceless, NO COMMERCIALS!

TopDownDriver

Waiting for 8k is stupid. Films are shown theatrically in 4k on a screen so much larger than you will ever have in your home. 4k will be the logical solution for many, many years to come.
I recently put a 78″ 4k set in my home. The difference when showing a 4k movie (of which I have a few), and standard HD is jaw-dropping and immediately obvious. Streaming solutions, which are already streaming in 4k, can just not compete due to current bandwidth limitations (and I have plenty of bandwidth).

Zunalter

The march of history is definitely on your side, but having everything in the cloud has its disadvantages as well; such as: having to constantly pay to keep access, never actually owning any of what you are paying for, devastating the 2nd hand market for those people who are more cost conscious, etc.

Scott

You may own the physical DVD/Blu-Ray disc, but you only have a license for the content. If you lose or damage that disc you’re likely out of luck.

I’m pretty sure that when I purchase a movie on Amazon I own the right to view it as long as Amazon has a license to distribute it. I’ve been using it for 5 years and have always been able to watch what I’ve purchased.

A sudden, large-scale revoke would seriously upset me. But until that happens (or there’s a credible threat it will happen) I’m all in.

Pickee

It has happened on the kindle side.

slow_moon

I’ve been wondering about licensing in terms of physical media.

If my beloved Jurassic Park BR broke in two, is there anything in the license that says the destroyed media causes it to be revoked? I understand that I technically don’t own the film, rather I paid for a license to watch it under certain conditions(e.g. not on an oil rig). But isn’t the media simply the delivery method?

From what I understand, the studios just don’t want other random people watching the film using my license. I could watch JP endlessly for ten years and not pay them a penny more than someone who watches it once and then throws it under a bus and we’re both legally entitled to do that.

Surely by paying for the license to the data contained on the disc rather than the disc itself, that license holds true as long as I don’t pass it on and continue watching?

Here’s a scenario:

My JP BR breaks. I’m devastated and want to watch it, so I download a BR copy from the internet. Putting aside the moralities/legalities of torrenting/supporting pirates/etc, am I allowed to then watch that BR rip in lieu of the BR which broke?

I understand that, if the above was somehow legal, I couldn’t download a BR copy for a film I own on DVD because the BR is a separate product and different people/companies may have been involved in its creation/transfer from the original print.

I wonder…

Regarding lare-scale revokes, they’ve affected me a few times already. A game I bought on two consoles, Outrun 2, got pulled from Xbox Live and PlayStation Network in 2011 due to the Ferrari license running out. I no longer own the original 360 and PS3 I bought it on so I can no longer download it at all; no refund, no nothing. Each version cost me about $15.

It happened again with a high-profile demo for the new Silent Hills game called P.T. which was pulled and can no longer be downloaded. Yes, it’s a free demo but the licensing is the same(it even shows up as a ‘purchase’).

So far in my lifetime I’ve never lost or broken a DVD/BR/game but I’ve had the licenses for two games revoked. YMMV and all that but I don’t enjoy the fact I can’t easily backup purchases like that.

With my iPhone, on the other hand, all the apps are .IPA files in my iTunes folder which I can backup however I like and they install onto new iPhones without any problems.

Aaron Briggs

Hmm disks are dead? last I recall they are still brining in billions a year. And why would I subscribe to a worthless content controlled 5$ bin movie service like Netflix and pay endless fees when I can buy a Combo pack and get the Blu-ray and the digital version forever? Yeah until digital shows me true cost savings I will continue to purchase physical media, besides I hate compressed audio and video.

Pickee

Zip Discs exceeded that circa 1996.

technoreaper

I realize you’re just one of those people that likes to seem like they’re cool by saying “X is dead”, but honestly, I own my blu-rays and they play perfectly, unlike streaming. They’re also cheaper because people can buy and resell them, so you’re not dependent on a company who can randomly pull your copy at any time.

Sir Chester of Game Rant

Wanna know why Blu-ray will remain relevant in the future?

Because cable companies will leave us stuck on 20 down, and 5 up internet speeds, that’s why. 4K/6k/infinity and beyond won’t be capable of streaming smoothly or downloading in a timely manner.

Zunalter

Large cable companies/ISPs maybe…but a small local provider in my area just put in new infrastructure and upgraded everyone’s internet speeds an additional 10-25 Mbps for free.

Sir Chester of Game Rant

Hence why we need more local competition than monopolies. Cheaper business for them due to their smaller size, still profitable, easily capable of upgrading their service without having to go nation wide, and stays competitive.

Aaron Briggs

there is still a lot of cities all around the world that don’t have good internet on top of Data caps and as we continue to consume insane amounts of bandwidth with phones, 50gb game downloads + it will just get worse unless ISPs give everyone cheaper and faster internet which wont happen. and on top of that even my 140Mb connection has a hard time streaming 4k and that’s compressed, Native 4k yeah no.

VirtualMark

Hmm, I’m happy that 4k is finally arriving, but I’m not too happy that there will still be a long wait for 8k. What is the point in investing heavily in a 4k setup when 8k will be the next big thing?

When HD came out, there was no talk of 4k. So it was worth investing. But I’ve read that 8k has been tested, and that movie and TV companies were thinking of going straight to 8k to save buying equipment twice.

Also, these Blu-Rays will be stretched to the limit. It’s got twice the storage for 4x as many pixels, although the h.265 codec can offer similar image quality at half the bitrate. Still, add in Dolby Atmos and there will be no space left. It’s certainly not going to be any good for 8k, and a new disk will almost certainly be needed.

Joel Hruska

VM,

I don’t think there’s any chance of 8K arriving in the near-term future, for a variety of reasons. Here they are, in no particular order:

1). TV manufacturers and organizations like NHK always push the envelope. NHK has been working on 8K broadcasting for decades. If you actually trace the timeline of product introductions (as opposed to media buzz and CES demos), you find that the pace of new product introduction is on a 10 year cadence. DVDs debuted in 1997 and were replaced in 2006 by Blu-ray. Blu-ray debuted in 2006 and is being replaced by UHD in 2015.

Samsung was showing off 4K TVs as far back as 2008 or 2009. They still account for a distinct minority of all screens shipping today.

Despite these gains, 4K video streams still require much faster broadband than 1080p streams. 8K would quadruple the total number of pixels in transit *again.* You can stream 4K quality in H.264, but nobody wants to do it to the entire country. We will need an H.266 follow-up to make 8K streaming happen.

3). The cable industry in America is still doing most of its broadcasting in 720p encoded with MPEG-2. The idea that they’ll suddenly leap for 8K is farcical, Comcast began testing MPEG-4 @ 1080p in some test markets *last* August.

Over the next few years we’ll keep seeing 8K demos, and a few high-profile debuts at major sporting events. There will be displays shown at CES. But if you look back to the 4K ramp up, all of these things occurred then, too — and we’re still just barely beginning to adopt it, 6-7 years after the first TVs were shown off.

VirtualMark

Thanks for the reply Joel.

1) Yeah that doesn’t surprise me TBH. 4k TVs are currently expensive, and I’ve not even seen an 8k in the shops. Only in tech demos as mentioned.

2) I did actually mention the bitrate saving from h.265. But do you think that an h.266 standard would be able to half the bitrate again? I was already impressed that they managed to do so well with h.265.

Have you read anything about the V-Nova “Perseus” codec? It apparently offers video at sub audio bitrates, but I can’t find out much more about it. It sounds too good to be true TBH.

3) Yeah, with regard to broadcasting, obviously we’ll need a huge leap. Although I’d like to see 8k discs as a high end option for people to buy, as that’d probably be the only way to get it to them. Streaming 8k would take up tons of bandwidth too.

Joel Hruska

Regarding #2: Codecs and compression algorithms are deep voodoo as far as I can tell. But I know that H.264’s target was a single-core mobile CPU (which is why basically anybody’s phone can do at least some 720p).

I read once that H.265 had a target of four Cortex-A9 processors for handling software decode. The explicit tradeoff was using more local hardware to do the stream decoding but getting better bandwidth characteristics as a result.

Moore’s Law may have slowed but improvements haven’t stopped. It seems plausible to me that by the time 8K rolls around, the target device could easily be a quad-core chip with performance that’s say… 2x higher than the current Cortex-A57 and implemented on 7nm.

Throwing more local hardware at the stream allowed for better compression from H.265 as compared to H.264 — so perhaps this trick can be repeated.

VirtualMark

So basically it takes more computing power to decompress it, but saves bandwidth? That makes sense.

Do you know anything about the V-Nova codec? I’m surprised that ET hasn’t covered it at all, it sounds too good to be true.

Joel Hruska

I have not heard of them until just now. Looking at their website…

Let’s just say I’ll wait for evidence on this one. I’m not saying it’s impossible. But I want to see it for myself.

DannyY98

You don’t invest in technology. You consume it. Forget about future proofing. Just pay for 4K when it is affordable. Don’t be an early adopter. It makes no sense to buy 4K now anyways. It might be worth it in 5 years from now when it is commonplace. You used to pay $5K for 1080i television. 1080p television costs $500 for the cheapest model today (Vizio). By the time 4K is commonplace, your 1080p television is likely ready for the recycle bin. I already had to replace a 1080p Samsung after 5 years that I paid $2300. Repairing a bad screen is more costly than a replacement. You’ll be lucky if any home entertainment system lasts 10 years.

VirtualMark

Yeah it’s a fair point, and I probably won’t be able to resist upgrading to 4k when the time comes. I just don’t want to invest(and yes you do invest in a movie collection) in a ton of 4k movies just to find that 8k is coming soon.

Apparently it won’t be out too soon anyhow, and I’ve seen 4k screens that look amazing. So guess I’ll just have to spend some money!

Back in the 90’s before DVD you could copy Laserdiscs onto a VHS tape, but those days are over. Blu-rays have a minimum of 50GB’s of data more than any VHS tape or burnable DVD could possibly hold. Not to promote pirating of digital content, but people may still do this IDK. You can purchase a Blu-ray/DVD burner drive for a computer, discs to copy the content to and a good program to do so, but IMO it’s just not worth it. Just buy the movie. Less hassle and you won’t be breaking the law.

Pyperkub

Which versions of HDCP/HDMI will be needed? I really don’t want to have to upgrade my HDMI-switching receiver, etc. just for a new version of DRM.

MarkIra613

The bigger question for MANY consumers like me goes like this…

“I want to buy a UHD TV now. As such, I need to know which CURRENT makes and models are fully compatible with the 4K Blu Ray standard. Where is this information?

Scott Poppen

If I have a 4K TV that is not capable of displaying HDR content will it still work with a 4K blu ray that has HDR capabilities?

Andrew Fox

They already have second generation PS4 on the market, it has physical buttons for power and eject rather than the weird touch sensors in the first generation. It would have to be 3rd generation that UHD comes in. I think Microsoft are looking to bring a smaller slimmer model of the XB1 to market also so maybe that will gain support for the standard.

davidlowe

why bother with 4K, may as well wait for 8K or even 16K, LED tv’s are so 80’s, OLED’s are the future, low power and full blackness, discs are just lame, I will be streaming at 1 Terabit/s and watching on my VR headset in fully immersive 3D with 13.1 surround sound driven by a brain activated control system, pah to all voice control

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